Liam Barr

Someone starts telling you what's going wrong for them.
Something drops in you before they've finished.

That part is a reflex.
Feeling it was never up to you.

What comes after is.
Carrying it home. Turning it over at midnight.
Living in their situation like it has your name on it.

They're deep in something.
Climbing down doesn't lift anyone out.
It takes away the one pair of hands still on solid ground.

A hazard appears on the road.
We yank the wheel to miss it and drift into the next lane.

Fear does not require an imaginary danger.
Sometimes the road really is blocked.
Our first escape can become the fastest thing moving.

Fear arrived uninvited.
The turn still belonged to us.

What frightened us may never hurt us.
But our swerve could hurt someone else.

I had pictured the date so often it became its own constellation.
Every point had a place.
Every line was already joined.

Then today looked different.
One point sat beyond the line I had drawn.
For a moment I thought the stars had missed.

I kept watching.

Then the pattern widened.
The misplaced point found its line.
Everything fell into place.

What seemed late for the beginning was right for everything after it.

Nothing had fallen out of place.
The sky was simply larger than my drawing.